At Washington Farmland Trust, relationships and community come first. That’s why in addition to helping farmers protect, steward, and access land, we love working together to elevate your unique voice and perspective, partner on community events, and inspire support for local farms. We approach every engagement with care, practicing ethical storytelling and working together to connect people with the land and their food sources in a way that feels meaningful to each individual farmer.
Our Approach
With every engagement, we provide farmers with a media consent form to sign. This allows us all to get on the same page about individual preferences, from how a story will be shared to what feels comfortable being featured. For collaborative stories or speaking engagements, we pay farmers an honorarium for their time, ranging from $150-$250/person depending on the engagement. When we develop media together, whether it is a blog post, video, or a photoshoot on the farm – we will share the final piece with you upon request to use for your own marketing or community engagement purposes.
Partnership Opportunities
No matter the engagement, we will work together to create a plan that works best for each individual farmer.
Joint storytelling
Farmer stories. Each month we feature an audio interview through our Farmer Voices series, highlighting farmer’s perspectives, challenges, and more. We also feature farmer stories in our various fundraising campaigns throughout the year.
Media coverage. When we work with farmers on a newsworthy project, such as land conservation or a strategic partnership, we often collaborate on press releases and pitch the local media together.
Video. We occasionally invest in special projects or campaigns that include video storytelling. In these cases, we partner with farmers to elevate their work as a way to educate our community about the importance of local farming.
Photoshoots on the farm. Photos of the land, local food, and farmers working together are what bring our stories to life. As budget allows, we partner with farmers to host photoshoots on the farm that can be used for both of our storytelling needs.
Features in The Crop or on social media. Between our newsletter, The Crop, and our various social channels, we have an engaged audience of more than 20,000 people. We are always excited to lift up farmer voices and elevate local businesses and products on our platforms, from Farmer Voices to our Food & Farms Holiday Gift Guide and more.
Events and tours
Co-hosting events on the farm. From farm tours and yoga on the farm to gleaning produce for food banks, we have hosted a variety of creative opportunities for people to connect with the land and local farmers. We also partner on restoration events with farmers working on WFT-conserved land.
Partnering on fundraising events. Every year, we invite farmers to speak on our panel at Love the Land. We also occasionally invite farmers to share their stories at smaller community gatherings either virtually or in-person. If you would rather be behind the scenes, we also accept farm product donations at our events.
Tours with supporters or elected officials. Occasionally we host supporters or elected officials interested in investing in farms or advocating for farmland-related issues. We work together to design spaces for farmers to tell their stories and influence positive change.
Let’s Work Together
Interested in working together to tell your story or engage people who care about food and farming? Have other ideas for how to partner that you don’t see listed here? We’d love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@wafarmlandtrust.org.
